CINEMATIC REVELATIONS allows me the luxury of writing, editing and archiving my film and television reviews. Some reviews appeared initially in "The Commercial Dispatch" and "The Planet Weekly" and then later in the comment archives at the Internet Movie Database. IMDB.COM, however, imposes a limit on both the number of words and the number of times that an author may revise their comments. I hope that anybody who peruses these expanded reviews will find them useful.

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Monday, September 10, 2012

Adam West of ABC-TV's "Batman" fame stars in "The Specialist" (* out of ****), a bland inconsequential potboiler about inappropriate conduct between a juror and a defense counsel. He's cast as attorney Jerry Bounds, counsel for the defense in a case about a water company, where opposing counsel Pike Smith (veteran western character actor John Anderson of "Young Billy Young") is determined to have him disbarred from the trial.

Everything starts when Smith is sacked from his job at the water company, and he wants back on the board. When the head of the water company, Arthur Farley(Chuck Boyd of "Predator 2") refuses to reinstate him, Smith hires sleazy, low-life private investigator Alec Sharkey (film director Howard Avedis masquerading as Russell Schmidt) who enlists the aid of a beautiful woman for $5-thousand to seduce Bounds and get a mistrial declared in the case. Blond Ahna Capri, a veteran TV actress that appeared in virtually every memorable 1960s' TV series from "The Wild Wild West" to "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." to "It Takes a Thief," doesn't mind displaying her ample buxom charms as Londa Weyth. People refer to her as "The Specialist" because sex is her specialty,and she sets to work to seduce Bounds. Smith arranges for Londa to serve as a juror in the case. Meanwhile,Bounds repeatedly warns her that their flirtatious affair could ruin his career. Poor Jerry Bounds is hopelessly seduced by her, and Sharkey snaps several incriminating photos of the two cavorting near a reservoir while the judge and a bailiff watch them. Bailiff Humbolt is played by none other than Alvy Moore of TV's "Green Acres" where he played Hank Kimball.

Not content with having Bounds taken off the case, Smith goes even further and tries to get Bounds disbarred. Meanwhile, Bounds' wife Elizabeth (Avedis' wife Marlene Schmidt of "They're Playing with Fire") learns that Londa moved into a house a week before the trial and was seen in public with Pike Smith's son Hardin (Harvey Jason of "Too Late the Hero"), who etches nude pictures of sexy women. This is the first surprise in this tame little thriller; the wife would rather stand by her erring husband in this predicament than divorce him. Elizabeth decides to find out how Londa became juror number six in so short a time, while Bounds confronts Londa in San Francisco with a subpoena. Sharkey eavesdrops on their conversation and contacts Pike Smith; Sharkey hits Smith up for $20-thousand, so Londa and he can clear out of the country. At the same, Smith is going to send his artist son Howard to England, because the Bounds know about his involvement in the affair. Eventually, Sharkey catches up with Smith, and they struggle in Smith's basement where the armed Sharkey tries to pick up his blackmail money. Incredibly, Sharkey—who has a revolver on him at the time—doesn't shoot Smith when he has the opportunity. Smith has Sharkey jammed in the doors of his safe room while the two struggle. Sharkey is a prime example of a stupid villain. He could have shot Smith, but he is too brainless take advantage of his one chance. The ultimate injustice comes when the Bar Association disbars Bounds despite the death of Sharkey. In the last scene, misguided, idiotic hero Jerry Bounds pursues Pike Smith outside against his wife's advice and guns him down in broad daylight with a revolver. Fade out.

Director Howard Avedis is a fan of the slow zoom out to reveal, a technique that most filmmakers embraced during the 1960s. Aside from one or two locations, everything appears to have been lensed in cramped hotel rooms. The pacing is comatose, and the music is light but cheerful. West, Anderson, and Moore are the three biggest names in this incoherent mishmash. The only thing that stands out in this movie is that the hero is doomed by his own incompetence from the start; he repeatedly warns the femme fatale that he could lose his career as a lawyer. Nevertheless, Jerry Bounds cheats on his wife and pays the consequences. Of course, we expect that the hero will clear his name and his honor, but he does neither and that makes this half-witted Crown International release look truly dim-witted and anti-climactic.

"TRON: Legacy" writers
Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal have written and directed their first film
together about the controversial issue of plagiarism. "The Words" (**
OUT OF ****) qualifies as an initially provocative but ultimately anti-climatic
melodrama about purloined prose. This loquacious, 96-minute, PG-13-rated
film shuns physical action so it shares little in common with the traditional
end-of-the-summer blockbusters. You won't find any careening car chases, white-knuckled
fistfights, and sensational shoot-outs in this contemplative morality play. The
first half of "The Words" is deliciously audacious, but Klugman and
Sternthal undercut everything afterward with
a devastating revelation. The main characters that Bradley Cooper and Jeremy
Irons incarnate aren't real people! Instead, Cooper and Irons embody nobody
characters in a story that another character has created. After this stunning
surprise, "The Words" unravels as a second-rate story-within-a-story.
Basically, this is a soap opera about another soap opera with losers who have
struggled against formidable odds to fail miserably. Mind you, the tragic
characters that Cooper and Irons portray are sympathetic in several respects.
Nevertheless, the resolution to their conflict lacks dramatic impact. After our
protagonist admits that he has appropriated another man's words, nothing
happens that truly tops his confession that he ripped off another man’s verbiage.
Ironically, the real author never receives credit because too many other people
would suffer undue hardship. Meantime, the actual author who created these
woebegone characters—played by Dennis Quaid--emerges as far less complicated
than his own characters. Had Klugman and Sternthal jettisoned the framing
device of a narrator, this could have been a better film. The problem
that the two filmmakers never deal with satisfactorily is the overwhelming
inertia of their narrative. This is a very dull movie about characters
that don’t have a shred of charisma. "The Words" boasts solid
performances by an attractive cast featuring John Hannah, Olivia Wilde, J.K.
Simmons, Ron Rifkin, Michael McKean, Zoë Saldana, and Liz Stauber.

Rory Jansen (Bradley Cooper of “The
A-Team”) dreams about writing the great American novel. The problem is that he
is living on next to nothing in New York City and his genius had taken him
nowhere. Rory persuades his reluctant father (J.K. Simmons of “Contraband”) to
foot his bills while he forges his literature. This movie should have
been released on Father’s Day, because Simmons plays a father who is worth his
salt. Eventually, Rory is called into an agent’s office. The agent commends him
for writing a wonderful novel, but he describes Rory’s book as too “interior.”
Rory decides to take a job at a publishing house where he supervises the
distribution of mail and manuscripts to agents. One day Rory pulls out a
frayed leather satchel that his wife, Dora (Zoë Saldana of “Avatar”), brought
for him from a Parisian antique shop after they had visited Ernst Hemingway’s
apartment. Years later, Rory discovers an anonymous manuscript on
yellowed typing paper in a concealed compartment of the satchel. He reads
it and admires what he peruses.

Essentially, the novel is a melodramatic
tearjerker set in Europe about an American soldier (Ben Barnes of “Dorian
Gray”) and a French waitress Celia (Nora Arnezeder of “Safe House”) who fall in
love near the end of World War II. The man who penned it was living in
Paris, and he entrusted the manuscript to his girlfriend. Unfortunately, she left it
accidentally behind in a storage compartment aboard her seat on the train. The author never
recovered his manuscript until he read the story published under Rory’s
name. Naturally, Rory is floored by this revelation. Consider
Rory’s defense. He read the novel and felt that if he could transcribe it
to his computer that he might catch the magic of the author’s prose so that it
might improve his own writing. Rory doesn’t change so much as a single
mark of punctuation. He hands it to an agent at the publishing house,
Joseph Cutler (Zeljko Ivanek of “The Bourne Legacy”), and Cutler loves
it. The novel proves to be a sensational bestseller. One day while
he is spending time alone in Central Park, Rory meets the elderly gentleman who wrote the
manuscript. Imagine Rory’s shock at being busted for plagiarism. The old
man (Jeremy Irons of “Die Hard with a Vengeance”) tells Rory everything that he
remembers about his story. The shock sets in, and Rory finds himself trapped in a
minefield of moral repercussions. Rory is no villain, and he is fully prepared to expose
himself for the plagiarist that he is, but everybody advises him against making any foolish decisions that may jeopardize his career! During
all this rigmarole, Rory and Dora squabble because she feels that he has not
been truthful to her.

After the third act, “The Words”
coasts gently without surprise to its lackluster finale. The last part of
the action concerns bestselling author, Clay Hammond (Dennis Quaid of
“Footloose”), once he concludes his public appearance where he read selections
from his novel “The Words” about Rory’s plight. Clay’s agent Richard Ford
(John Hannah of “Four Weddings and the Funeral”) introduces him to a Columbia
graduate school, Daniella (Olivia Wilde of “Cowboys and Aliens”), who wants to
interview him. She demands to know more than Ford has shared with anybody
about Rory’s fate. By this time, fatigue has set in and “The Words”
concludes feebly with neither striking insights nor spiraling
revelations.